Weekly Insights

Explore new augmented reality features in Google Maps

These immersive experiences — available right from Google Maps — let you experience Parisian landmarks in new ways. Augmented reality (AR) in Google Maps offers new ways to explore places and find things to do. Last week, we shared how this technology is helping visitors and locals navigate Paris this summer. Here's a closer look at the new immersive experiences that let you not only explore the city’s iconic landmarks, but also interact and engage with them.

New ways to explore with AR in Maps

When you search for a location in Google Maps that offers AR content, you can explore it right from the app. Simply touch the "AR Experience" icon and raise your device to view it from Lens in Maps. If you’re not at the landmark, you can still view the experience from anywhere in the world using Street View. (Google )

How indie fashion designers are using emerging tech like AI, AR

Cult Gaia launches Web3 membership community, Syky joins the Vision Pro hype, and Polo Ralph Lauren brings its iconic patches to the metaverse. Off the back of Web3’s hot streak last week, which saw Coach enter the gaming realm, Balenciaga embrace the Vision Pro, and Brunello Cucinelli tap artificial intelligence, things are looking up for digital fashion. This week, however, it’s the indie players that are back in the spotlight, with LA-based lifestyle label and influencer favorite Cult Gaia launching a new Web3 community membership for its followers. (Jing Daily )

How Many Consumers Have Tried AR? Thrive Analytics and ARtillery Intelligence have released a new report: AR Usage & Consumer Attitudes, Wave 8

Thrive Analytics and ARtillery Intelligence have released a new report: AR Usage & Consumer Attitudes, Wave 8 . ARtillery Intelligence authored survey questions and a narrative report while Thrive Analytics administered the survey through its established survey engine.

Highlights include the fact that 35 percent of U.S. adult consumers have used mobile AR – up from 32 percent in the previous survey wave. Consumers are also using AR with high frequency, with 46?percent of mobile AR users engaging at least weekly, and 80 percent at least monthly. This is a strong demand signal, given that active use is a key metric for any consumer technology.

Top mobile AR experience categories include social lenses, due to Snap’s AR investment and innovation as well as emerging platforms like TikTok Effect House. Meanwhile, other categories such as AR shopping and visual search (e.g., Google Lens) continue to gain traction.

“Gaming and social are typically where new consumer technologies germinate,” said?ARtillery Intelligence Chief Analyst, Mike Boland. “But history tells us that lasting value develops around utilities that solve everyday problems. This includes AR’s ability to add more dimension to shopping and to contextualize real-world surroundings through informational overlays, or even audio.” (AR Insider )

Google brings Gemini-powered search history and Lens to Chrome desktop

Google Thursday said that it is introducing new Gemini-powered features for Chrome’s desktop version, including Lens for desktop, tab compare for shopping assistance, and natural language integration for search history. Years after introducing and evolving Google Lens on mobile, the feature is finally coming to desktop. Rolling out to users across the world in the coming days, Lens will live in the address bar, as well as the three-dot menu. After clicking, you can select a part of a page and ask more questions to get search results. You can also tap on objects, such as someone’s backpack in a picture, and ask questions through multi-search to find a similar item in different colors or brands. Depending on the question you ask, you might also get AI Overviews in answers. In addition to searching for shoppable items, users can also find out how much sunlight a plant needs, for example, or get help understanding a math equation. (Tech Crunch )

Henkel releases Color Remix, an AR hair color simulator

Henkel teamed up with Snapchat and Atomic Digital Design to create an exciting AR experience on Snapchat! Snapchaters can now play with our new lens to virtually try different hair colors, making it fun and easy to find their perfect shade. Dive into this innovative and interactive way to experiment with your look! (Atomic Digital Design )

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic Augmented Reality Added to Epic Universe Preview Center

With the announcement of the details of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic , guests can now bring the land’s model to life at the Epic Universe Preview Center at Universal CityWalk Orlando. While the model has been available for viewing for some time, guests were not able to use AR with the Epic Universe Preview Center app until today. Now, guests can bring the area to life to gather knowledge about what to expect when the land opens as part of Epic Universe next year. (Universal Parks News Today )

How the EU’s AI Act will impact marketers

The world’s first comprehensive piece of AI regulation won't drastically alter the day-to-day lives of most advertising professionals – but that doesn’t mean they can ignore it. The AI Act, a sweeping piece of legislation designed to mitigate some of the technology’s potential harms in the European Union, officially goes into effect today, four years after it was initially proposed. (The Drum )

Meta Introduces SAM 2: The next generation of Meta Segment Anything Model for videos and images

Takeaways:

• Following up on the success of the Meta Segment Anything Model (SAM) for images, we’re releasing SAM 2 , a unified model for real-time promptable object segmentation in images and videos that achieves state-of-the-art performance.
• In keeping with our approach to open science , we’re sharing the code and model weights with a permissive Apache 2.0 license.
• We’re also sharing the SA-V dataset , which includes approximately 51,000 real-world videos and more than 600,000 masklets (spatio-temporal masks).
• SAM 2 can segment any object in any video or image—even for objects and visual domains it has not seen previously, enabling a diverse range of use cases without custom adaptation.
• SAM 2 has many potential real-world applications. For example, the outputs of SAM 2 can be used with a generative video model to create new video effects and unlock new creative applications. SAM 2 could also aid in faster annotation tools for visual data to build better computer vision systems. (Meta )

Toronto park is offering a futuristic way to order food with augmented reality

Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park is about to become the city’s coolest dining destination — if you know where to look. Enter Wenu Eat, the groundbreaking platform that’s flipping the food delivery game on its head with a splash of augmented reality.

Picture this: you’re lounging in the park, the sun’s out and your stomach’s growling. Instead of fumbling with apps or waiting in long lines, you whip out your phone, and voilà! Thanks to Wenu Eat you’re greeted with floating popsicles, charcuterie boards and craft beers in 3D space. It’s not magic; it’s augmented reality. (Streets of Toronto )

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